Monday, February 18, 2013

Is Theban "runic"? and other quandaries

What if you could see where the secondary sources went wrong? (a meta-discussion)

To avoid confusion and hurt feelings, I should state clearly what my objection is not. The Wikipedia article Theban alphabet
is an entirely uncontroversial, well-edited presentation of what all
the trusted, published, paid-for secondary sources have been saying for
decades on the topic, entirely in accord with Wikipedia's policies.

A frequent problem in "occult" topics is that secondary sources may
have echo-chambered each other for decades or even centuries, thus
setting a claim in stone as far as Wikipedia is concerned — but its
foundation may truly be sand.

Meanwhile, others might be able to cite specific evidence, say "No, look here and here
for yourself, with your own eyes" — and settle the matter, among the
reasonable. ... Except on Wikipedia, where that's rejected out-of-hand
as "original research", so that the old misconception remains enthroned.
Let's see if this is a case in point.

Is "the Runes of Honorius" a misnomer, because "Theban is not a runic alphabet"?

From the earliest to the current version of this article, we are told Theban is also the "Runes of Honorius" — but "is not, however, a runic alphabet."
Well, that's confusing, isn't it? Is our runes runic or isn't
they? (And is our children educated?) May I suggest one short simple
path to the light, so you could if you like revise the article
accordingly? (I have no wish to edit-war, so I won't edit it at all.)

Follow that little blue link to Runic alphabet and ponder the actual meaning of "runic". It isn't limited to the angular-shaped Norse/Germanic carved letters. And I quote:

The name runes contrasts with Latin or Greek letters. ... The name is from a root run- (Gothic runa), meaning "secret" or "whisper". ... The name rune
itself, taken to mean "secret, something hidden", seems to indicate
that knowledge of the runes was originally considered esoteric, or
restricted to an elite.

Was Theban a secret alphabet? Then it was in this sense a "runic" alphabet.Perhaps you think I'm playing modern word-games with you. No. Go read "Runes and Runic Magic in Old Germanic Religion" by Diego Ferioli at the New Antaios Journal (excerpt):

Thus when Paul tells the Ephesians (3:4) of "the mystery of Christ," in the Gothic text that's "runai Xristaus." (The rune
of Christ doesn't mean he was an angular carved Norse or Germanic
character, does it? Outside some people's imaginations, that is.) Any
more questions whether Theban was likewise "runic" — in the
non-angular/carved sense?

"The Theban alphabet bears little resemblance to other alphabets...."

Superficial visual resemblance? Well, not much to the Latin alphabet, anyway. But what does that
prove? Latin and Hebrew and Arabic and the old vertical
Mongolian/Uighur script don't share superficial visual resemblances
(they're written in three different directions, and two of them aren't
even technically "alphabets" in their original form), yet in fact
they're all related, descended from Phoenician script; sometimes you
just have to look closer to discover the links. (And... if we do discover visual resemblances... what will that prove?)

Let's kick that poor dead "runic" equine some more: look at the Theban character that does triple duty for U/V/W, sort of angular/carved-looking.... Now go look at the rune (Wunjō)
that does triple duty in Norse for U/V/W; oooh, does that mean Theban
is at least partly a carved-runic alphabet after all? (Not really: cf. Nabatean (Waw), a very old and widespread Semitic character.) But now, d'you want to take another look at the Theban "L" and the rune (Laguz), flipping one or the other vertically? Or compare the Theban "F" and "A" to the corresponding runes (Fehu) and (Ansuz), flipping them horizontally? Or the Theban "E" and rune (Ehwaz), no flips at all?

Is there a similar aesthetic at work? And if there is... so what? Given that the reputed script creators (Mesrop Mashtots of Armenia and Honorius of Thebes, whichever "Thebes"
the latter denoted) came from the same religious culture (Eastern
Christianity) and part of the world, some kinship would have been about
as surprising between their scripts as between the superficially
visually different Glagolitic and Cyrillic.

Which "Theban alphabet" are we discussing anyway?

The problem with making this "little resemblance" argument is using
the nice big clean "Theban glyph" SVGs shown in the article, which
frequently differ even from the original Theban letters shown in the old diagram at its upper right corner. (You can see
for yourself the differences between old and new there on the page just
by looking; it doesn't depend on anyone believing my assertion or
"original research.")
This is a modern script devised to help modern readers, by making the
glyphs not so terribly alike (e.g. notice the closed top loop on the
modern "B", compared to the old y-like character's open top which left A
and B almost identical).

That's a perfectly honest and honorable reason to develop a new font;
typographers compete all the time to accomplish more legible, useful,
and beautiful scripts, and are justly celebrated when they achieve it.
However, these are not usually then also presented elsewhere as being the original historical script.

If Wikipedia is showing readers a new version (which has letters made not to resemble each other too much) in order to demonstrate that the older version (not shown so big and clear) "bears little resemblance to other alphabets," isn't that manipulating the evidence?

In fact, given Wikipedia's influence as a reference source, isn't
this quiet switcheroo unduly popularizing the modern script in place of
the historical script? People can come here, copy the chart, and think
they're learning the Olde Ways — not realizing they're learning to
handwrite a computer font designed by someone who was dissatisfied
with the original glyphs. When the product's not clearly labeled, I
think at some level they're being cheated. And that makes this a
stereotype of shoddy New Age marketing.

Oh, those "angular" runes weren't always!

Runes were straight-edged and sharp-angled when carved into wood or
stone, yes, that was a feature of the medium, along with avoiding
horizontal lines to keep from cutting along the grain of the wood and
thereby splitting it. But the same letters were also used for writing
with ink-and-quill for extensive documents, and there was no such
straight-and-angular limitation then: e.g. see the Codex Runicus
(ca. 1300), and note that the runes are rounded rather than angled. You
surely know that English writing continued to use Thorn (Þ þ) and Eth
(Ð ð) long after the Conquest, still visibly curved in their manuscript
form, and they can now be found in many standard English publishing
computer fonts, as well as in the HTML entities &THORN; &thorn;
&ETH; &eth; -- still curved, not straight.

As Theban is an ink-and-quill, manuscript-lettering alphabet,
naturally it doesn't look like wood-carved glyphs; but calling it "not
runic" for that reason would require calling the runic manuscript Codex Runicus "not runic", which seems just a bit senseless to me.

The article states: "Theban letters only exist in a single case. This suggests an origin for Theban as a cipher calqued on Latin,...." — This is a non sequitur: the first statement in no way suggests, implies, or supports the second. Earlier above, we saw a few examples of Georgian letters; well, Georgian is unicase; should we likewise deduce that Georgian originated as a cipher calqued on Latin? And Hebrew, and Arabic, and Tamil, and Hangul? Those are unicase too!
And the Ge'ez script used to write Ethiopian-regional languages, that's unicase as well... so is it also a cipher calqued on Latin, rather than (as everyone had thought) based on ancient South Arabian consonant-glyphs
but attaching vowel-signs to create a syllabary? Well, gee, that might
explain yet another odd similarity in letter-shapes to Theban!

Truly amazing how there are no scripts anywhere in the world with glyphs
bearing resemblance to the Theban letters... until you actually open
your eyes and look for them... right?

And is it clear now that the above-quoted suggestion about unicase
scripts originating as ciphers (like other claims in the article) has
no basis to be made by Wikipedia to its trusting readers?